Short Story you might enjoy

[Frozengale]

So I just wrote a short story tonight (just for fun) and would like to get some input on it. I figured the sort of humor and writing style that I'm going for would be enjoyed by many of you since it is reminiscent or Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett (or at least that is what I was aiming for). So hope you enjoy and please tell me what I need to work on.



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Dave was sitting at the front of the pub staring intently at his glass. The Barman was cleaning a class with a slightly stained rag as he leaned against the bar and looked slightly interested in Dave. The Barman always assumed this position before engaging a customer in idle chitchat. "The Position" as it was known in Bar-School was the most opportune way to talk to a customer because it allowed you to seem open and willing to talk about anything but allowed easy escape both figuratively and physically if things should go wrong with the customer.

"If I may be so kind in asking, Sir, why are you staring at that glass in such a curious fashion?"

Dave's face was contorted into a myriad of emotions ranging from "Feigned Happiness" to "Insanity with a touch of Halibut".

The words came gritting forth from the kind of smile you expect a serial killer to wear,"I'm practicing telekinesis"

"It doesn't seem to be working sir"

Dave let out a heavy sigh as his face was replaced by one that looked much more sane and a bit more sad. The Bartender looked Dave over for a second. He seemed to be in his late-twenties with a kind face. He wore a Black Suit Coat with a blue T-shirt and Jeans. If you looked into his eyes to long you felt you were getting lost in something resembling, but not quite, insanity.

"I know" he said, "My brain just doesn't want to tell Physics to stuff it"

Dave and his mind never really saw eye to mind's eye in this matter. Dave was convinced that the Laws of Physics were nothing more then guidelines for those who didn't understand the world, while his brain seemed to hold The Laws in utmost regard. Dave knew that all one needed to do to be able to use the powers of telekinesis was to tell the Laws of Physics to look the other way for a bit, after all what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. The problem seemed to come when Dave would tell his brain to then start doing silly things like lifting a cow with pure thought. His brain wasn't to fond of the idea of just being unfaithful to the Laws of Physics, after all they had had a steady relationship for years so why ruin things now.

The Bartender looked around and felt like a long explanation had gone by without him and was gladdened by this prospect.

"Well, I'm sure you'll get it one day, Sir!"

He looked at Dave with an encouraging smile. Suddenly the Bartender noticed the glass in front of Dave give a small jiggle as it lifted off the table on what seemed to be its own accord and pressed lightly up against Dave's lips. Dave grabbed the glass out of the air and made the necessary motions to complete the waters journey from the glass to Dave's stomach.

"Why, you see Sir, you got it after all"

The Barman gave Dave a smile similar to the smile a father would give his child after learning to tie his shoe. Dave let out another heavy sigh.

"No, that wasn't telekinesis, that was abdomenesis, you see I'm using my stomach not my mind. It just isn't the same."

The Barman gave a slight frown

"I don't see the difference Sir. You're moving it without touching it either way."

Dave's sighs seemed to become more and more commonplace as the third one wafted into the air and gave an airy greeting to the first and second. They then joined hands and left the pub in hopes of finding a nearby dance club where they hoped to find some nice looking "Mmm"s to dance the night away with and exchange numbers.

"No, you don't understand. Abdomenesis only works with food and drink, things that your stomach wants. I mean it works with a lot of things, but only if your stomach wants it bad enough. Also it's harder to control. Once I tried lifting a cow while my stomach was a bit anxious for hamburger, I suddenly had a flaming bovine hurtling towards me and I couldn't stop it! Though I was very proud that my stomach had picked up on Pyrokinesis so fast, didn't even need my help. Poor cow though, had to hide behind a wall in order to stop its momentum, nothing was left but a heaping scorched pile of...of well... of hamburger."

The Bartender gave a knowing nod. He had once seen cows on fire hurtling through the air bringing terror to all who saw the sight. But that was in the war long ago and he didn't like to talk or think about it.

"So how close are you to getting telekinesis to work instead, Sir?"

Dave tapped his fingers on the bar as he thought about this.

"I'm not quite sure. But I'm trying to get as drunk as I can in order to confuse my mind. I'm hoping if it's confused enough it will tell Physics to bugger off and I can have my fun."

The Bartender thought about this for a while.

"Sir, not that I don't agree with this theory, but you've only been drinking water all night. How do you plan on getting drunk on water?"

Dave gave the Bartender a small grin as he leaned back in his chair.

"That's the beauty of it, I'm not getting drunk by means of Alcohol. I'm getting drunk on Life. I haven't slept in three days actually."

Most people would probably think this as an insane statement to make, but the Bartender was up with the times and understood what Dave was talking about. It had recently come out in a scientific discovery that Life is the most intoxicating of all substances, even more intoxicating then Love, Euphoria, or Scotch. The reason the body needed to sleep so much was not because it needed to recharge from the strains of the day but it was in fact to get away from Life and its overwhelming effects. Without sleep the body experiences to much Life and starts to become drunk with it, the mind starts to slip, you can’t speak right, every little thing a person says becomes funny, emotions run rampant, and sooner or later you will find yourself with a sock puppet on either hand. In fact the effects of Life were more devastating then most scientists even thought possible. In the study it was revealed, much to the dismay of Cardiologists, that Life was the leading cause of Death and not Heart Disease.

The Bartender felt the familiar feeling of missing a long explanation that he didn't need to hear. He looked at Dave in a sort of awe.

"You, Sir, must be quite determined."

Dave grinned at the Bartender

"Indeed I am"

Dave sat at the bar along in thought as The Bartender went to serve some new customers that had just come in. He got out of his seat and headed for the door. The Bartender noticed Dave leaving and turned to bid him farewell.

"Best of luck to you Sir."

Dave waved behind him as the door shut. He walked along the streets in the silent air of twilight and the setting sun. He got to his apartment and went inside, making sure to duck as a stale piece of pizza hurtled out the open door, Dave's stomach gurgled at him in disapprovement. As determined as Dave was to pursue in getting drunk he knew that he would have to put his experiment on hold for now, tonight he needed to sleep. He went up the stairs to his bedroom as he heard his heartbeat count every moment he had been awake. His eyes drooped as he got into a nice pair of stripped pajamas and laid down in his bed. He was ready for sleep.

Dave's mind felt the warmth of Dave's eyelids shut and thought it would be a nice time to put on a movie. He looked through his video collection passing by such classics as "Dave in his Underwear", "Dave flying then falling to the Ground", and "Dave as Ironman". While searching through the rows and rows of videos Dave's mind slipped. He happened to slip at a very opportune position, landing directly in a fog of drunkeness that Life had left before leaving. That night Dave's mind got so drunk that instead of watching a movie it called The Laws of Physics over to party. After a long heated debate ending in "NO! YOU'RE STUPID" Dave's mind and the Laws of Physics ended their relationship that night and vowed never to see each other again.

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[Cake]

I enjoyed it.

[Unlucky]

I enjoyed it and voted yes.

However, I believe that the sections wherein you try and emulate Douglas Adams drag on a tad and seem slightly jarring and unrelated to the main point. Basically, unnecessary tangents that seem like you're forcing yourself to try and emulate someone else when you really don't need to.

For example: "Dave's sighs seemed to become more and more commonplace as the third one wafted into the air and gave an airy greeting to the first and second. They then joined hands and left the pub in hopes of finding a nearby dance club where they hoped to find some nice looking "Mmm"s to dance the night away with and exchange numbers."

That section drags on a little and diverts too much from the main point. While it is funny, it still seems a tad jarring.

Of course, I could be horribly wrong but just trying to help.

[Tim]

Interesting premise. The whole "drunk on Life", "Life is the leading cause of death" part was clever.

The stuff about telling Physics to shut up or bugger off is just about a direct lift from the parts in Hitch-hikers' Guide to the Galaxy where Arthur is learning to fly. (I think it's from those parts; might be from a different section.) So it did seem derivative.

You need to work on your copy-editing, too. There are a lot of mistakes with spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, and that detracts from the flow and immersiveness of your writing.

Keep working on it! Writing is fun. Silly writing is especially fun. (I do silly writing every now and then and post it to my website, actually. I have a character named Wesley Chesterson that I do my silly writing about.)

[Frozengale]

Yeah after re-reading it I see what you mean about the syntax and grammar errors. That's what I get for writing it at 3 o'clock in the morning. And yeah that is sort of pulled straight from the points in the Douglas Adams books about flying

[Zack]

I agree with all that has been said:

-Interesting
-Humour is a bit forced
-Grammar and sentence structure not perfect.

I did enjoy it very much though. I think you should go over it and come up with a second draft.

~Zack

[Unclever title]

Very enjoyable, and to be honest I at least partially related to Dave's experience with the duality of mind and self.

But I've usually experienced it in a situation where I say or do something so serendipitous to that situation that it could not be mere chance that allowed it to be.

These are experiences where I could almost swear that my brain is smarter than I am. I don't properly remember the details on some of them but a couple of examples:

Once, on a particular vent of being silly (I haven't a clue of what inspired it) I threw my wallet at my Dad from a few feet away. It bounced off his chest and flipped open and he caught it after a few near fumbles but the amazing thing I did was catch my debit card as it flew out of the opened wallet and not normally but between my index and middle finger like a magician. I might have said "Is this your card?" had I not already been laughing in astonishment.

Another was when I used the word "razz" in a sentence in a way that seemed reasonable and it made sense to me, but then I thought. "Is that even a word? And what does it mean?" I looked it up and lo and behold it IS a word with real meaning!. I had also used it correctly! And I am almost positive that I had never heard or read that word used in a sentence. I could rationalize it through an assumed etymology from the word raspberry afterwords but that wasn't what I was thinking when I decided to use the word. Or was it? Was my brain just being smarter than me?

Alas this probably means I'll never become telekinetic if I can't outsmart my brain. Oh well, c'est la vie and L'chei-im!

[Frozengale]

I agree with all that has been said:

-Interesting
-Humour is a bit forced
-Grammar and sentence structure not perfect.

I did enjoy it very much though. I think you should go over it and come up with a second draft.

~Zack

That actually is the second draft (though I might do a third or fourth, etc.) The first one I posted on Facebook and it was about three times shorter and was just Dave sitting at his table by himself and it was told from a narrative perspective with no talking or anything like that. I figured it was a good enough idea to show to my friends and get a reaction but not to post on any kind of forum because I knew it would get torn apart.

[Jillers]

I agree with what everyone else said, but I'd like you to take it one step further: move away from emulating (and downright copying) Douglas Adams, and find your own voice. Obviously, the only way to do this is to keep writing (which you should, it's not a bad short story at all!).

...I'm going to guess you probably just read, or re-read the Hitchhiker's Guide not too long before writing this draft.

[Frozengale]

I agree with what everyone else said, but I'd like you to take it one step further: move away from emulating (and downright copying) Douglas Adams, and find your own voice. Obviously, the only way to do this is to keep writing (which you should, it's not a bad short story at all!).

...I'm going to guess you probably just read, or re-read the Hitchhiker's Guide not too long before writing this draft.

Well I do make it a point to read the series at least once a year.... and surprisingly I wrote like him before I even read any of the guys stuff so even if I'm not trying to emulate him it comes off as such.

[Jillers]

Well I do make it a point to read the series at least once a year.... and surprisingly I wrote like him before I even read any of the guys stuff so even if I'm not trying to emulate him it comes off as such.

Oh... well then... you're screwed.